( It’s parent-teacher interview night, and I’m volunteering as a student. I’m sitting in the lobby, with two other students, giving directions and schedules to forgetful parents. A woman comes up to us and asks where to find her first meeting. I help her out, and fifteen minutes later she comes back, and acts EXTREMELY rude .)

Parent: You know, for future reference, if a teacher isn’t there, you really should let people know, so that you don’t waste their time! And now I need to get to room A251, can you at least do that?

Me: Oh, I’m sorry, but his name is on the list here-

Parent: Well is he here or is he not?! Because he told me he would be here, and the boys over there said he already left!!

Me: Well, we aren’t told information like that, so it’s not exactly our fault; don’t blame us. A251 is over that way.

Parent: Hmph!

( The three of us just stare at each other as she leaves. One of the other students actually goes to check that the other teachers in that department are available. In retrospect I was a bit sassy, but she was incredibly rude. Who picks on sixteen year olds? Yeesh.)

(A colonoscopy is a medical procedure where a doctor examines the patient’s intestines with a small camera. But, of course, medical suffixes can be easily mixed up if you aren’t intimately familiar with them.)

My sister has just gotten in an argument with our father, in which he became verbally aggressive. Later, she is talking with our mother about it.

Mom:Well, I got him back for it. I scheduled him for a colonoscopy.

Sister: (horrified) Don’t you think that’s…kind of harsh!

Mom:Oh, the doctor’s been on him to get one for a while. It was time anyway.

((I’m in a wholesale store shopping with my husband. This store commonly has samples available for the customers, and this is an encounter I had with one of the employees who was handing out samples. It starts with me walking past the employee and her sample station, and grabbing a cookie from one of the sample trays she has out. The other tray – the one I did not grab from – had one cookie on it. I grabbed from the second tray because it had the cookie I wanted, as some of them were different.))

Employee: *looking at me as if I’m at fault for something* You should have taken the cookie from the tray with just one on it. You grabbed it so fast, I didn’t have a chance to cover this tray up. Normally I would let it go, but when it’s busy like this, you need to grab from the other tray.

Me: *Not saying anything, but with a bewildered look on my face*

Employee: It’s not your fault, but you need to know to take food from the other tray next time… *continues on, making me feel bad*

((I still don’t know why this deserved a lecture. I wasn’t rude to her in any way, even though I was confused by her actions. She was an elderly lady – I did not want to upset her more or get her in trouble by reporting her, so I let it go.))

(We’ve just started Year 9 and we’ve got this really awesome geography teacher. She’s new, but has the ability to make the class laugh so hard. This happens on a Friday afternoon, second-to-last lesson.)

Teacher: Let’s start talking about development indicators!

*Class start murmuring*

Teacher: My great great grandmother was the 5th of 12 children. My great great great grandmother thought that the others would die because of illness so she just had spare children. They all lived and she ended up having 12 kids.

Student #1: That’s so mean.

Student #2: That’s cheap labour!

Whole class: Yeah!

Teacher: My great great grandmother didn’t want to have many children as she had 11 siblings so she had the one child who survived!

Student #1: I’m confused with all the greats.

Student #3: Me too.

(As [Teacher] explains again, I face-palm. Then…)

Student #4: How many aunties have you got?

Teacher: 3, why?

Student #4: How many brothers and sisters?

Teacher: Ok guys, we’re meant to be learning geography, not the [Teacher] family tree!

(The class explodes into laughter. We quickly get into the next activity. The kicker? We’d only just started the first proper task when [Head of Geography] came in to assess [Teacher]’s teaching. It certainly made the class feel better, as we had two tests on our last lesson of the week!!!)